Mayor Bing says no to RoboCop statue

David Gomez, 9th February 2011

Detroit’s Mayor Dave Bing was featured in several media outlets Tuesday. You would think his appearances would have people in cyberspace talking about his efforts to fix Detroit, but people were talking about his veto of a RoboCop statue instead.

According to The Detroit Newssomebody submitted a wacky request to the mayor to build a statue honoring RoboCop from the 1987 movie about a cyborg law man fighting scumbags in Detroit’s vast wasteland. Bing rejected the nonsense via his Twitter account.

"There are not any plans to erect a statue to Roboop. Thank you for the suggestion," read a message Monday from Bing's Twitter account, mayordavebing.

The message got the Twitter bugs all excited Tuesday, leading to hundreds of negative, often sarcastic responses. "A statue of Robocop would drive so much tourism," one user wrote.

Many websites, including the ultra-popular TMZ, followed the silliness.

On Facebook, over 1,000 users signed up for a page to "Build a statue of Robocop in Detroit." A lot of people have mentioned that other cities have paid tribute to fictional characters before: Philadelphia has a statue of "Rocky Balboa," while Milwaukee has one of the Fonz from "Happy Days."

Like most modern politicians, Bing uses social media to interact with supporters and residents. The RoboCop tweet was one of nine sent from his account to users Monday. Bing’s staff said it was sent by Samara Bradley, who was hired as Bing's media manager in 2009 and makes $63,000 a year. Among other tasks, she maintains Mayor Bing's Facebook and Twitter accounts.

There goes Bing’s chance to be the coolest mayor of all time. Maybe the statue would be inappropriate to buy with tax payer money, but we Metro Detroiters would have found a way to raise the money to get RoboCop in the city of Detroit where he belongs.

I'm from Michigan and we could really use him right now, for a laugh. I would freaking love to see a RoboCop statue in Detroit.